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Sam stared. Beside her, !Xabbu was watching with more interest than he had shown in an hour. "So . . . that's all there is?" she asked. "We've seen the whole place? Just once around the bagel and we're done?" She shook her head, almost angry. "That's too woofie to be true. For one thing, if we've gone all the way around the whole world, where was Renie? And that friend of yours, Klement? They couldn't just disappear."
But maybe she could, Sam thought suddenly. Into a hole. Into a river. Lost. Lost like Orlando. . . .
"Perhaps the model is even more strange," said Jongleur. At that moment he seemed almost normal, like one of her teachers—not a chosen companion, but not an arch-villain either. And like her better teachers, he actually seemed interested in what he was talking about. Sam remembered that this was a man who, whatever his methods, had set out to solve the problem of human mortality.
Like, that Greek guy in the myths, who stole the secret of life from the gods. Orlando would remember his name.
Jongleur had wiped away his other drawings and replaced them with the largest circle yet, this one filled with half a dozen concentric wavy circles, so that the whole looked something like a watery bull's-eye. "Then consider this," he said. "Perhaps there are more worlds concealed within this world—many more, like Russian dolls. But instead of the river being the conduit between them, it is a barrier instead. So instead of following the river," he traced one of the river-rings back to his starting point, "which only brings us back to our starting point, we must instead cross over the river, into the next world." He drew a line from one ring, across the wavy river line, and into the next ring inward. "There is no need to mimic real-world geometry here. The self-elected god of this place doesn't know much about the real world, after all."
Sam stared at the bull's-eye. "Hang on—that just scans. Look out there—look!" She pointed to the far side of the river, its low hills and river meadows still glowing in the directionless light. "Like !Xabbu said, we'd have seen Renie if she was over there. And besides, if it is another world, then your operating system doesn't have much imagination, because it's just like this one!"
Jongleur's self-satisfied chuckle made Sam want to hit him. "Just because you can see it does not mean it's there, child."
"What?"
"There are many places in the Grail network where only one side of the river was built. Those who try to reach that other side find that although they can see it, they never manage to reach it—but still the illusion of two sides is maintained. If we managed to cross that river somehow, who knows where we would be? Or what we would see if we looked back at this spot. . . ?"
The twilight was upon them, and it was getting hard to see the far side anyway. Sam was too tired and depressed to stay interested in a discussion of yet another mystery. Even if Jongleur was right, even if they could make sense of it and find Renie, maybe even find the Other itself, they would still be exactly nowhere. Sam remembered the Other, its cold presence, the way it had made the cartoon Freezer a hole into complete nothingness. . . .
I wonder what Mom and Dad are doing right now? she thought suddenly. They can't be at the hospital all the time, watching me. Her loneliness was touched with something like jealousy. Maybe they're home eating di
!Xabbu was still looking at the river. "There is someone there." He sounded very calm, but Sam knew better—she had learned something about him in their days together.
"Somebody where?" She sat up, surveying the now-shadowy farther bank. "I don't see anyone."
"In the reeds at the edge of the river." He stood. "It is a human shape."
Sam could see only the faint movement of the stalks, a wavering wall of gray. "Is it . . . can you see who it is?" She tried to keep excitement out of her voice, having just realized it was just as likely to be the zombie Klement as Renie. It might even be Jecky Nibble or one of the other strange creatures from a couple of nights ago.
Something was indeed clambering out of the reeds—something very human in its shape and movements.
Her moment of hope lasted only until !Xabbu's next words, spoken in a voice so flat that Sam could only guess at the pain behind it. "It is a man." He had been poised, pulled taut like a bowstring, ready to run down the slope. Now she saw him sag, even the possibility of danger less important than the fact of loss.
The stranger raised his hands in the air. "Don't run!" he called. "I ca
He was limping, and the black trousers and loose white shirt he was wearing were badly torn and pink with washed-out blood. If he was faking, trying to lull them, Sam thought, he was doing a very good job of it. He staggered like a ru
The stranger was of more or less ordinary size, his body older than hers, younger than Jongleur's, and very fit. Except for the bedraggled black mustache and wet hair, he was quite good-looking in what Sam thought of as a ta
"Oh, share your fire, please," he begged as he stumbled the last few steps toward them. When none of them said anything, he threw himself down beside the flames, shivering. "Thank God. There is nothing good to make a raft here—the one I made keeps sinking. All last night I spent, wet and freezing. I saw your fire, but could not reach it. I have been following you. Ah, God, this empty, miserable place."
Sam was surprised that !Xabbu had not made the stranger welcome. She looked to him for a cue, but the small man still seemed oddly distracted. "We don't have much to give you," she said, "not even a blanket. But you can certainly get warm at our fire."
"Thank you, young lady. You are very kind." The stranger tried to smile but his teeth were chattering too briskly to hold it for more than a moment. "You do me a favor, and Azador does not forget favors."
"We should go get more wood," !Xabbu said suddenly, touching Sam's arm. "Come with me and we can carry back enough to last all night."
!Xabbu walked very close to her as he led her toward a copse of trees farther up the meadow where he had gathered the first batch of deadfall. "Do not look back," he whispered to her. "Don't you remember the name Azador?"
"It . . . it sounds familiar, now that you mention it."
"He traveled with Paul Jonas for a while. Before that, with Renie and me. The lighter—the access device—came from him."
"Oh my God! You're dupping, aren't you?" She fought the urge to look back. "But what's he doing here?"
"Who knows? But what is important is that he doesn't know we recognize him. You see, he knows me only in the shape of a baboon."
"You don't want him to know who you are?"
"We will learn more if he thinks us all strangers. At least we will be more likely to notice if he tells lies." !Xabbu frowned. "But now that I think about it, this is a very complicated problem. From what Paul Jonas said, this man calls himself a victim of the Grail Brotherhood. If he finds out who Jongleur is. . . ." He shook his head. "And since Renie and I used our real names in front of him, you ca
"This is making my head hurt," she said as they reached the trees. "Maybe we should just kill him." !Xabbu turned to her, eyes wide. "I'm joking, utterly!"
"I do not like such jokes, Sam." !Xabbu bent and began picking up branches from the ground.